Red Bull are going to revert to a traditional design of rear wing in the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix following crashes by Max Verstappen in the past two races, Yankee Scores reports.
The news was confirmed to BBC Sport by Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies, who stated that the team had identified some problems with the previous wing during testing after the last Silverstone GP.
“The reason we are going back to a standard wing which uses the same principle [of having an open rear wing in straight line], but just not as aggressive,” Mekies stated.
According to Verstappen himself, “It’s quite obvious why. We will go back on the old one and see whenever the new one is ready again to be used by us.”
This year, both Ferrari and Red Bull have introduced a new design which allows to rotate the top flap by more than 180 degrees, thus allowing the wing to reach an open position.
The new design is capable of increasing straight line speed due to higher drag reduction.
Verstappen’s crashes happened during entering high-speed corners, but they were caused by the closing process of the wing.
They occurred due to an aerodynamic disturbance caused when the wing was transitioning back into cornering mode having been in open mode while on the straights.
This scenario was described by Verstappen as “super-dangerous”.
Mekies could not give exact details regarding what had led to the problem that is suspected to be connected to the airflow taking too much time to reattach once the wing was closed.
If this was true, then there would be reduced downforce on the rear end and it would explain why Verstappen spun off.
The team made the announcement after running a short “filming day” test at the Silverstone circuit recently.
